Page 8 of Beautiful Nightmare
She grimaces. “Yeah, I figured that out. So, I don’t know who it was, or if you told someone they could hang here or something…” Her words trail off, sounding like a nervous question.
“What do you mean?” I bite my lip, glancing again at Raven. She lifts her shoulders in a barely perceptible shrug. Icy prickles of awareness raise goose bumps on my arms. “What makes you think that?”
She grimaces. “Because it smells…offin here. For lack of a better description. Not that we’ve been here long, but…”
I feel completely silly as I pause to delicately sniff at the air. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”Wait.She’s right. There’s a hint of something. I close my eyes for a second as my heart misses a beat and plummets into my stomach.
Raven frowns, breathing in the air, her forehead pinching.
The three of us probably look like fucking idiots, all sniffing our space. But… “It smells like—”
“Guy. It smells like adudein here. Like manly body wash or cologne or something.” Star looks from me to Raven, demanding with her eyes that we agree. “I’m not saying it’s nasty or anything. You can tell me if one of you has a boyfriend or whatever. I actually kinda like whatever it is. I just— I’d prefer to know when other people are going to be in our suite. That’s all.” She stops, her gaze shifting from me to Raven and back.
Raven winces. “I hate to say it, but I smell it, too. But… neither of us has a boyfriend.” At the nervous look slipping over Star’s face, Raven quickly says, “But I almost went into the wrong suite earlier. Maybe it was just a case of another freshman being totally lost, the same way I’ve felt all day.”
“I mean… I guess that could be it.” But Star shakes her head like she doesn’t quite believe it.
My mind races.Oh my God.What if I’m not losing my grip on reality? Was that really Hawk earlier? And was he in here? How? My chest jerking with my stuttered breath, I murmur, “Is anything weird in your room?”
“Inside? No. Just out here.” Her entire body shivers involuntarily.
I wince, my eyes meeting Raven’s. “Maybe we’d better check ours.”
Her eyes widen, but she turns around and heads for her room. “It’s locked.”
Star snorts. “Well, locks don’t seem to be stopping someone from coming in here. I definitely locked the suite when I left around seven. It was unlocked when I got back from the meeting.”
A sick, nervous feeling washes over me from head to toe. I don’t like this one bit.
We watch as Raven steps carefully inside her room, looking around. She disappears for what feels like a long time, but it’s probably only been about thirty seconds.
She reappears, shaking her head. “Nothing.”
With my heart beating fast, I twist the doorknob to my room only to find it gives easily. It’s unlocked. “Shit.” My teeth clamp down on my lower lip, and my hand jerks away and falls to my side. I stare at the door, a sinking feeling overwhelming me.
Star comes to stand next to me, giving me the side-eye. “I know we just met, but who the hell would be messing with you?”
Raven appears at my other side. “Does this have something to do with earlier? The whole dropping of the kitchen stuff everywhere?” She puts a gentle hand on my upper arm and pats absentmindedly as we stare at the door.
I look first at her, then at Star. “I don’t know,” is all I manage to get out.
Star leaves us and heads into her room, coming back a few seconds later with a lanyard similar to mine, only hers has a little canister attached to her keyring. She sees the look on my face. “Pepper gel. Can’t be too careful.” Raising her brow, she asks, “Do you mind?”
“No. Go right ahead.” I gesture to the door, scared of what—or who—we’ll find inside.
Nudging my door open, she leads the way with us trailing cautiously behind her. We check the closet and the bathroom but come up with nothing. Once I’m satisfied there’s no one here but us, I take a deep breath. The same scent that was in the larger common area is present here, too. Inside my room.Fuck.
Overwhelmed by all the thoughts swarming through my head, I sit on the edge of the bed, reflexively gripping the duvet on either side of my hips. “Now what?”
Raven looks around. “Is anything missing?”
I let a breath hiss from between my lips, as I try to not look like a complete freak in front of these girls. “I don’t know. I haven’t even finished unpacking yet.”
Star looks around. “Well, I guess if you realize something’s been stolen, you should report it. But if their intent was to steal stuff”—her gaze lands on my desk—“who would break in and not take your laptop?”
I shake my head, then rest my elbows on my thighs, letting my head fall into my hands. “I don’t understand.” And I can’t even begin to express to these girls what it is that is so perplexing because it makes no sense to me why this is happening. It’s so obviously got to be Hawk, I don’t know what to think. My brain is on overload. If Hawk is alive, why would everyone keep this from me? Had my parents thought it would make my recovery easier to tell me the boy I once thought I might love was dead when he really wasn’t? They wouldn’t have. None of it makes sense, anyway. No one knows what went down the night before the accident, how Hawk shattered my fifteen-year-old heart.
My eyes flick up to these two girls, wondering what they are going to think when they find out what the last two years of my life have been like. They’re strangers to me, and we’ve been thrown together. I don’t know how much to tell them, if I can even trust them with my secrets. Hell, I’ve known Star for mere minutes. Suddenly, I’m simply done pondering the entire mess and blurt out, “I think— I think I need some sleep.”
